The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the murder of Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) worker Abdul Shukkoor will file the charge sheet in the First Class Judicial Magistrate Court – 1 here on August 25.
Investigating officials said 37 persons had been arraigned as accused in the murder case. All of them were Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers, including party
Kannur district secretary P. Jayarajan and Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) State secretary T.V. Rajesh. They said the list of accused might include two more CPI(M) workers as the investigation was coming to its final stage. The first (A1)in the list of the accused is K.V. Sumesh, local party worker at Kannapuram, who the investigators said had stabbed Shukkoor to death. Mr. Jayarajan and Mr. Rajesh are A 32 and A 33 respectively on the list, they said.
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The investigators said four CPI(M) workers arraigned in the case, including Shyamjith, son of party State secretariat member M.V. Govindan, were absconding.
Shukkoor, 21, hailing from Ariyil near Taliparamba, was hacked to death by a group of assailants at Keezhara under the Kannapuram police station limits here on February 20. The murder was apparently in retaliation to the attack on Mr. Jayarajan and Mr.Rajesh during their visit to tension-hit Ariyil that morning. Shukkoor and four other youths who had taken refuge in a house at Keezhara, were forced to leave the house after a group of CPI(M) workers intimidated the house owners. The police said their captors took their photos on mobile phones and verified these with party workers. After the ‘verification’, three of them were released. Shukkoor and Zakaria were taken to a nearby field and stabbed. While the former died of stab injury, the latter, who suffered stab injuries, escaped.
Mr. Jayarajan and Mr. Rajesh, now remanded in jail after their arrest in the case, were charged under Section 118 of the Indian Penal Code as the investigators found that they had knowledge about the conspiracy to kill Shukkoor, which was hatched in a room at the Taliparamba Co-operative Hospital where they had been admitted on February 20.
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